Immediate action for safe spaces for women

March 22, 2011
Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council

http://dnchome.wordpress.com

Open letter to BC Housing

Re: Immediate action required for safe spaces for women in the DTES

The Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council (DNC) supports the call of the coalition of DTES women and women’s organizations for BC Housing to do its part in prioritizing the creation of safe spaces for women in the Downtown Eastside (DTES).

The DNC has seven hundred members and an elected board of directors of 21 DTES residents and natural community members. We have held monthly general meetings for over a year in the Carnegie Centre theatre and in the hall of First United Church where over a hundred community members have routinely gathered together to organize for social justice and a better community. We know that many gathering spaces in the DTES, for example the First United shelter, are highly masculine spaces. Men tend to dominate the spaces numerically, and a masculine and sometimes misogynist culture dominates these spaces. The DNC, like many other community organizations, works to create safe spaces for women in these dominantly masculine environments, but we can attest to the difficulty of this undertaking. Except when women and ally others organize to make spaces safe, public spaces can be unsafe for women. Sexual violence is one of the most terrible, and terribly common, outcomes of the dangers of public spaces.

Throughout the past two months the DNC has also organized a petition drive in hotels throughout Chinatown. During this petition drive we have visited many of the hotel rooms in Chinatown and have seen that many of these rooms are double-bunked; women are staying in 10X10′ hotel rooms with men. We believe that double bunking is a form of women’s homelessness in particular, and makes them vulnerable to physical, emotional, and sexual violence. Higher rents in hotels means that women have less opportunity to leave abusive situations in double-bunked hotel rooms. If shelters and 24-hour spaces are not safe for women, the pressure to stay in abusive situations in double-bunked hotel rooms is higher still. We are not implying that every woman in a double-bunked hotel room is being abused, but believe that no one should be double-bunked in a hotel room because they feel they have no better or safer choice.

All women must feel and be able to access affordable, safe, housing and, until that housing is available, all women must feel and be able to access safe shelters and 24 hour spaces.

At our general meeting on March 5th, 2011, with 130 members present, the DNC unanimously passed a resolution to support the demands of the Coalition of DTES Women and Women’s Organizations, for:

1) A 24 hours low-barrier women-only (*) drop-in space and shelter in the
Downtown Eastside, ideally on Hastings Street between Main and Jackson.

2) Housing for homeless women and children with at least 100 new units to
be made available immediately.

3) Clear provincial standards for women’s safety in co-ed shelters to be
implemented immediately in all existing and new shelters, including but
not limited to:

• Women-only facilities in co-ed shelters with adequate women-only beds
and services within those spaces.

• Women staff and training for all staff by women’s organizations
experienced in issues of sexual and gender violence. Shelter contractors
must demonstrate the ability to ensure safety and security for women
shelter users and all staff must be able to demonstrate an understanding
of gender inequalities that contribute to violence against women.

(*) women-only includes all self-identified women.

Sincerely,

Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood Council

Signed by the DNC Board of Directors,
Ann Livingston
Anne Marie Monk
Dave Hamm
Dave Murray
Earl Crow
Eileen Pigeon
Fraser Stuart
Gladys Radek
Harold Lavender
Ivan Drury
Nathan Allen
Nicole Fidler
Paul Martin
Ping Chan
Richard Cunningham
Robert Rachael
Ron Kuhlke
Sid Tan
Tami Starlight
Vanessa Lowe
Wendy Pedersen